Ammonia Plant Upgrading-Multistage Integrated Chilling of Process Air Compressor with Ammonia Compressor Followed by Air Flow Split and Multistage Air Preheating to Secondary Ammonia Reformer

ABSTRACT

An ammonia plant system upgrade utilizing both a direct and indirect multistage chilling system in the ammonia plant air compression train to increase process air flow to the secondary ammonia reformer of an ammonia plant as well as upgrades to provide more pre-heating along with increased process air flow.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a Divisional of U.S. Ser. No. 14/241,018 filed Feb.25, 2014 based on PCT/US2013/054951 filed Aug. 14, 2013 and claims thebenefit of U.S. application Ser. No. 61/684,684 filed Aug. 17, 2012 andU.S. application Ser. No. 61/706,305, filed Sep. 27, 2012.

FIELD

This disclosure relates to multistage chilling of a process aircompressor by integrating refrigerant ammonia stream at differenttemperature levels from an existing or new ammonia compression system toprovide air chilling leading to a significant increase in process aircompression capacity and a much higher energy efficiency, withrelatively low capital. In addition it relates to the downstreamsplitting and pre-heating of the resultant higher air production flowrates feeding the secondary reformer in an ammonia plant.

BACKGROUND

The process air compressor in most operating ammonia plants is normallythe first major bottleneck to increase the ammonia production.

The process air compressor for typical average size ammonia plant is amultistage centrifugal machine driven by steam turbine usinghigh-pressure superheated steam. It is one of the major consumers ofsteam in the plant.

To debottleneck the process air compressor in an existing plant, ammoniaplant operators have conventionally used a combination of the followingmeasures:

-   -   a. Modification of existing compressor rotor and other essential        internals of the compressor;    -   b. Addition of a parallel new compressor with a driver    -   c. Increased suction chilling of process air using an expanded        external refrigerant system

Items (a) and (b) require significant capital and downtime with a longdelivery schedule besides modifications and/or additional driver andenergy requirement of high pressure steam for the turbine drive. Theoption (a) could typically achieve about 20% additional capacity. Thepotential of capacity increase with option (b) is much more and alsorequires additional compression power, and increased capital and plotspace than option (a). In most cases, these options are frequently noteconomically justifiable based on the payback criteria.

Suction chilling of Item(c) has been practiced for long time and is alsoan expensive option for process air compressors since it requires anexternal mechanical refrigeration system with additional compressionenergy and plot space. However, this option may be somewhat lessexpensive than the first two options (a and b) but provides only amodest increase in capacity and is rarely justified economically-evidentfrom the fact that only a handful of plants implemented suction chillingin ammonia plants. However, it remains a common feature for gas turbinesin power plants.

What is needed is a new approach which provides a significant increasein process air compression capability without extensive capitalinvestment requirements in expensive external refrigeration systems, noadditional power requirements for the air compressors, and no expensivemodifications to the process air compressor.

SUMMARY

This need is met by the recognition that there are refrigerant ammoniastreams available in ammonia plants from existing ammonia compressors. Amultistage chilling of the process air compressor as well as suctionchilling is proposed by the integration of selected refrigerant ammoniastreams from an existing ammonia compression train to provide airchilling and as a result a significant capacity increase in the aircompression system and reduced power consumption. In some cases only amarginal increase in power may be required but well within the limit ofthe existing driver. Two modes are presented—a direct multistagechilling and an indirect multistage chilling.

The integration is accomplished by an ammonia plant system upgradeutilizing a direct multistage chilling system in the ammonia plant aircompression train to increase process air flow to the secondary ammoniareformer of the ammonia plant including at least: a two stage suctionair chiller in the air compression system that chills incoming air byheat exchange with expanded high pressure ammonia from the ammoniacompression system of the ammonia plant; additional two stage airchillers between each of the air compressors of the air compressiontrain, each air chiller chilling incoming air by heat exchange withexpanded high pressure ammonia from the ammonia compression system ofthe ammonia plant.

In a further upgrade the upgrade includes at least: a new steampreheater for heating the increased process air flow; wherein thepreheated and increased production flow from the air compression trainis separated into three streams which are further heated in: theexisting dedicated process air preheat coils of the primary reformer;modified feed preheat convection coils of the primary reformer; andmodified boiler feedwater convection coils; and wherein the combinedheated three streams are fed to the secondary reformer.

In another embodiment the integration can be accomplished by an ammoniaplant system upgrade utilizing an indirect multistage chilling system inthe ammonia plant air compression train to increase process air flow tothe secondary ammonia reformer of the ammonia plant including at least:a two stage suction air chiller in the air compression system thatchills incoming air by heat exchange with chilled water from the ammoniacompression system; additional two stage air chillers between each ofthe air compressors of the air compression train, each air chillerchilling incoming air by heat exchange with chilled water from theammonia compression system; a staged water chiller that chills water forthe air compression system by heat exchange with expanded high pressureammonia from the ammonia compression train.

In a further upgrade of this indirect system the upgrade includes atleast: a new steam preheater for heating the increased process air flow;wherein the preheated and increased production flow from the aircompression train is separated into three streams which are furtherheated in: the existing dedicated process air preheat coils of theprimary reformer; modified feed preheat convection coils of the primaryreformer; and modified boiler feedwater convection coils; and whereinthe combined heated three streams are fed to the secondary reformer.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic drawing of a prior art process air compressiontrain in a typical ammonia plant.

FIG. 2 is a schematic drawing of a direct integrated multistage airchilling embodiment of this disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a schematic drawing of a indirect integrated multistage airchilling embodiment of this disclosure using ammonia and chilled water.

FIG. 4 is a schematic drawing of a prior art process air compressiontrain showing its connection to the secondary reformer in the ammoniaplant.

FIG. 5 is a schematic drawing of a direct integrated multistage airchilling embodiment of this disclosure with a disclosed modification ofthe heating arrangement for the secondary reformer.

FIG. 6 is a schematic drawing of a direct integrated multistage airchilling embodiment of this disclosure with a disclosed modification ofthe heating arrangement for the secondary reformer.

In FIGS. 1 through 6, like reference numerals designate the samecomponents and structural features, unless otherwise indicated.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following detailed description some temperatures and pressuresare presented to provide insight. These values can vary depending on theparticular process air compression train and the relative size andcapability of the equipment. These temperatures and pressures should notbe construed as limitations in this application.

Referring first to FIG. 1, a prior art process air compression train inan ammonia plant, is shown overall as numeral 100. Four compressorstages 120, 130, 140, and 150 are shown, with intercoolers 132, 135, and138 used between compressors 120 and 130, compressors 130 and 140, andcompressors 140 and 150, respectively. Inter-stage coolers 132, 135, and138 use plant cooling water to partially remove the heat of compressionand in the process remove some moisture 107, 109, and 111 as condensate.High pressure process air 118 is the output from the process aircompression train.

On the suction side of compressor 120 the first compressor acceptsfiltered 102 and chilled 104 air from a suction air chiller 155 thatboth cools the filtered air and removes condensate 103. The filtered airis produced from a filter 105 drawing in atmospheric air 101. Suctionchillers such as 155 are often not present in all prior art process aircompression trains. Prior art suction air chillers such as 155 typicallyuse chilled water supplied from a water chiller 160 that chills thewater using a stand alone refrigeration package 170. Variousrefrigerants can be used in such packages, including the use of ammoniaas the refrigerant.

As mentioned in the background section of this disclosure one option forincreasing capacity is to significantly increase the capacity of thestand-alone refrigeration package. In practice this is an expensiveoption with a relatively modest improvement and it is not a part of theproposed embodiments of this disclosure.

FIG. 2 shows the ammonia plant upgrade using the direct integratedmultistage embodiment of the disclosure. In this figure the numeral 200represents the process air compression train and the numeral 300 anammonia compression train. In an ammonia production plant there isalways an ammonia compression train but it is not integrated with theair compression train to provide cooling. The overall FIG. 2 shows howthe two are tied together, which is one of the embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

The air compression train, with its four compressor stages 120, 130,140, and 150 are shown, with intercoolers 132, 135, and 138 used betweencompressors 120 and 130, compressors 130 and 140, and compressors 140and 150, respectively. Inter-stage coolers 132, 135, and 138 again useplant cooling water to partially remove the heat of compression and inthe process remove some moisture as condensate. Thus this aspect of theembodiment is not changed—that is to say—the existing compressors andinter-stage coolers are used. High pressure process air 224 exitcompressor stage 150 is the output from the process air compressionsystem in FIG. 2.

Added chillers 230, 235, and 240 are now in the process in each casefollowing the intercoolers 132, 135, and 138 used between compressors.In addition a new suction air chiller 250 either replaces the previoussuction air chiller 155 of FIG. 1 or is a new addition. Air chiller 250accepts filtered air 102, removes condensate 203, and delivers chilledair 204 to compressor 120.

Numeral 300 exhibits the ammonia compression train that already existsin ammonia manufacture. This closed loop ammonia compression systeminvolves three stages of compression in two casings, compressor casings320 and 310. Compressor casing 310 has a lower pressure (LP) and ahigher pressure (HP) section. Ammonia from the ammonia synthesis loop394 enters into the low pressure flash drum 385. An ammonia vapor stream387 is fed from the low pressure flash drum 385 to compressor 320 andcompressor 320 compresses the vapor state to about 40 psig, shown asstream 302. At this stage the ammonia temperature is about 175° F. Thecompressed ammonia passes to second stage (high pressure case) ammoniacompressor 310 where it is further compressed and inter-cooled byremoving some of the ammonia and passing it through water pressurizedammonia cooler 255. The cooled ammonia in the vapor phase 306 is furthercompressed in the 3^(rd) stage of high pressure casing 310. Theresulting higher pressure ammonia 308 passes through compressed ammoniacooler 345 to liquid ammonia buffer drum 390, where inert hydrocarbons392 are removed and compressed ammonia 312 at about 235 psig and 100° F.is sent to the air compression train where it is used is to provide theadditional chilling needed by the air compression system to boost theproduction capacity of the existing air compression train. Warm ammoniaproduct 393 is drawn off at this point for other uses.

Still in FIG. 2, but turning now to the air compression train 200, theammonia from the ammonia compression train is now used as a coolant inadded chillers 230, 235, and 240, and in the new suction air chiller250. These are all two stage chillers with the second stage being coolerthan the first. In each of the added chillers and in the new suction airchiller the high pressure ammonia is expanded through valves to providecooling and the resulting ammonia after passing through the coolers andchiller is collected in headers 280 and 290. Header 280 is at about 95psig and header 290 is about 33 psig. The resulting enhanced cooling ofthe air stream progressing through the air compression train results insignificant increase in air compression capacity with a minimum of newequipment investment.

The expanded ammonia from header 280 is at a higher pressure than thatin header 290 and is returned (via 309) to high pressure flash drum 365in the ammonia compression train 300 and is then flashed vapor recycled(via 307) back into the last compressor stage of compressor 310. Theexpanded ammonia from header 290 is at a lower pressure and is returnedvia stream 334 to medium pressure ammonia flash drum 375 from where someof the liquid ammonia is further expanded to provide cooling to variousother plant users pressure. Expanded ammonia is fed, after cooling inheat exchanger 380, via stream 387 to the inlet of the LP stage of theammonia compressor 320. The remaining ammonia vapors from ammonia flashdrum 375 is combined with the compressed ammonia stream 302 exitingcompressor 320. Additional cooling at the various pressure stages in theammonia train is supplied by heat exchangers 335, 370, and 380, whichare already existent in ammonia compression train 300.

This embodiment then represents an effective and affordable integrationof an existing air compression train with an existing ammoniacompression system to achieve a substantial increase in production withminimal capital investment.

Turning now too FIG. 3 we describe an additional embodiment of the sameinventive concept. The problem to be solved is again, how to increaseair compression capacity with minimum capital expenditures and noadditional power requirement. FIG. 3 shows an alternate embodiment thatalso uses high pressure ammonia from the ammonia compression unit but ina different way. This embodiment is termed Indirect Multistage AirChilling and the key difference is that the air compression train doesnot see any direct contact with ammonia streams but instead uses chillwater obtained from direct heat exchange from the ammonia compressiontrain through a new staged water chiller 520. In FIG. 3 the numeral 400represents the air compression train and the numeral 500 an ammoniacompression train. In an ammonia production plant there is always anammonia compression train but it is not integrated with the aircompression train to provide and cooling or chilling. The overall FIG. 3shows how the two are tied together, which is one of the embodiments ofthe present disclosure.

The air compression train, with its four compressor stages 120, 130,140, and 150 are shown, with intercoolers 132, 135, and 138 used betweencompressors 120 and 130, compressors 130 and 140, and compressors 140and 150, respectively. Inter-stage coolers 132, 135, and 138 again useplant cooling water to partially remove the heat of compression and inthe process remove some moisture as condensate. Thus this aspect of theembodiment has the same arrangement as that of FIG. 2 and the existingcompressors and inter-stage coolers are used. High pressure process air424 is the output from compressor stage 150 of the process aircompression system in FIG. 3.

In this embodiment suction air chiller 450 replaces the previous suctionair chiller 250 of FIG. 2. And modified air chillers 430, 440, and 460replace chillers 230, 235, and 240 of FIG. 2.

In this embodiment all of the chillers are configured to exchange heatwith chilled water rather than expanded ammonia. As a result the twoheaders 480,490 are now chilled water headers. With this embodimentammonia never enters the air compression train 400.

Numeral 500 exhibits the ammonia compression train that already existsin ammonia manufacture. This closed loop ammonia compression systeminvolves three stages of compression, with LP and HP compressor casings320 and 310 respectively. Ammonia from the ammonia synthesis loop 394enters into the low pressure flash drum 385. An ammonia stream 587 isfed from a low pressure flash drum 385 to first stage ammonia compressor320 and the LP compressor casing 320 compresses ammonia vapor to about40 psig, shown as stream 501. For understanding, at this stage theammonia temperature is about 175° F. The compressed ammonia passes tothe high pressure ammonia compressor 310 where it is further compressedand water cooled by removing some of the ammonia and passing it throughpressurized ammonia intercooler 255. The resulting higher pressureammonia 521, after being compressed in the third stage passes through awater cooled condenser 345 to liquid ammonia buffer drum 390, whereinert hydrocarbons 510 are removed. A portion of the liquid compressedammonia stream 504 at about 235 psig and 100° F. is sent to a new stagedwater chiller 520 where it is expanded to provide for cooling and usedis to chill the return cooling water from headers 480, 490 that providethe additional cooling needed by the air compression system to boost theproduction capacity of the existing air compression train.

A key sub-system in the FIG. 3 embodiment is the use of the new stagedwater chiller 520 to provide cooling to a chilled water loop used in theair compression train. High pressure ammonia 504 is supplied to stagedwater chiller 520 where it is expanded to provide cooling in the stagedwater chiller. The two stages result in two chilled water streams 419and 464 that feed into each side of staged chillers 430, 440, 460, and450 to provide enhanced cooling to the intermediate stages as well asthe suction chiller of air compression.

An important embodiment is the management of water via condensatecollection. Condensate streams 403, 405, 407, and 409 are collected andfed to condensate collection 435. The combined condensate stream 401 isused to provide additional cooling/chilling in the suction chiller 450or could be used in the suction chiller 250 of FIG. 2 as well. Afterpassing through suction chiller 450 the warm water condensate stream 402is routed via stream 406 back to warm water header 480 and any excesscondensate 404 is disposed of.

The usage of collected moisture/water condensate eliminates the need forany external source of make-up water needed for the water chiller 520besides providing a addition cooling of process air, thereby, marginallyreducing the compression load on the ammonia compressor train 500.

The recycle ammonia from the two stages of staged water chiller 520consists of two streams expanded to two different pressures and as aresult two different temperatures. The higher pressure and highertemperature stream 506 returns to high pressure ammonia flash drum 365from where some of the expanded ammonia is fed, via stream 561 afterexpanding and cooling in a set of heat exchangers 370, to mediumpressure ammonia flash drum 375. The remaining ammonia vapor from highpressure ammonia flash drum 365 is fed, via stream 523 to the secondstage of the high pressure stage of second stage ammonia compressor 310.

The second lower pressure and lower temperature recycle ammonia stream509 feeds medium pressure ammonia flash drum 375. From the flash drum375 the liquid ammonia is further expanded to provide cooling forvarious plant users through a set of heat exchangers 380, and flashedinto low pressure flash drum 385 and is routed via stream 587 to theinlet of first stage ammonia compressor 320. The liquid ammonia fromflash drum 385 is taken as product ammonia 395 and further routed tostorage tanks via pumps as required. Ammonia vapors from ammonia flashdrum 375 is combined with the compressed ammonia stream 501 exitingcompressor 320.

In this embodiment there is no recycle ammonia from the air compressiontrain returning to the ammonia compression system as in streams 309 and334 in FIG. 2.

This embodiment then represents an alternate effective and affordableintegration of an existing air compression train with an existingammonia compression system to achieve a substantial increase inproduction with minimal capital investment.

It should also be noted that in most ammonia plant revamps—the ammoniaconverter in the synthesis loop is upgraded by increasing the ammoniaconversion either by upgrading the converter internals and/or additionalcatalyst bed together with optimum operating parameters. This upgrade ofthe synthesis loop results in reduced load on the ammonia compressor tothe extent of incremental ammonia conversion. The extra capacity onammonia compressor is mainly utilized to increase the ammonia productionto the economic limits of the front end section of ammonia plant. Theremaining available capacity of ammonia compressor is being utilized byintegrating it with the process air compressor as per this disclosure.

The advantages presented in the multistage integrated chilling of

Process air compressor significantly increases the Process aircapacity—which provides the following key benefits in Ammonia plant:

-   -   a. Reduced compression power for the same capacity or higher        capacity for practically the same power    -   b. Reduced fuel firing in the Primary reformer resulting in        further energy savings    -   c. Lower methane slip from the Secondary reformer—resulting in        lower inerts and lower H2/N2 ratio in the Make Up Gas (MUG) to        the Ammonia synthesis loop—which results in higher Ammonia        production

As shown in FIG. 4 (prior art) The compressed process air 118 in Ammoniaplants is further preheated through convection coils of the PrimaryReformer (a small amount of medium pressure steam 903 is also added toit before preheating). The preheated process air mixture 912 is theninjected into the Secondary reformer 740 to provide the necessary heatof reforming and also to adjust the required H2/N2 ratio for the Ammoniasynthesis reaction. The process air is conventionally preheated in theexisting dedicated convection coils 710 of the Primary reformer byexchanging heat against the hot flue gases 917.

The increase in the process air flow requires an additional heattransfer surface of convection preheat coils to maintain or increase thedegree of process air preheat. Conventionally, the convection airpreheat coils are modified with additional heat transfer surfacedepending on the available space in the existing convection section.This typical scheme ‘as prior art’ is shown in FIG. 4. In most of theexisting Ammonia plant reformers, the additional space to accommodatemore heat transfer surface in the convection section is usually notavailable. The space constraint in the convection section limits thefull benefits of increased air flow as the temperature of preheated airwill reduce with higher flow of process air; resulting in a relativelylower conversion of methane in the Secondary reformer. To overcome thislimitation, an additional embodiment scheme is proposed for either thedirect chilling embodiment of FIG. 2 or the indirect chilling embodimentof FIG. 3. The resultant new embodiments are shown in FIG. 5 and FIG. 6.

These embodiments—based on multistage preheating and splitting ofprocess air to significantly raise its temperature to the limits ofmaximum design limits include the following:

-   -   a. The first stage preheating of process air is done outside the        existing convection section using a new high pressure steam heat        exchanger 700.    -   b. Following the first stage preheating—the process air flow is        split in two or more streams to be further preheated through the        existing process air convection coil and through other        identified coils in the convection section.

These embodiments come from the following analysis. The existingconvection coils of various process services that have excess heattransfer area than required by the respective process service are firstidentified. In many existing ammonia plants, the feed preheat convectioncoil 720 and boiler feed water (BFW) 915 preheat convection coils 730tend to be over-surfaced than required—especially in the revampsituations. This offers the opportunity to convert the excess heattransfer surface of those convection coils for additional air preheatingby splitting the total process air flow as follows:

Compressed process air (224 in FIG. 5 or 424 in FIG. 6) is firstpreheated in a new steam air preheater 700—outside the convectionsection. This is done with pressure steam 901. The preheated air flowfrom (or before the steam exchanger) is then split in two or three partsto be further preheated in the convection section as follows; between60% to 85% of the total air flow is routed to the existing dedicatedprocess air preheat coils 710. And between 15% to 40% of air is routedto the modified feed preheat convection coil 720 for air preheatingservice and between 15% to 40% of air is routed to the modified boilerfeed water (BFW) preheat convection coil 730 for air preheating service.A hydrocarbon feed inlet 909 and exit 910 passes through existing feedpreheat convection coils 720. Boiler feed water 915 is also heated inthe existing boiler feed water convection coils.

The combined flow preheated air 912 from these three sources is thenfed, along with reformed gas 913 from the primary reformer intosecondary reformer 740, resulting in 914 reformed gas from the secondaryreformer.

Multistage external preheating of process air including the externalpreheating coupled with splitting the air flow for further preheatingresults in the following benefits:

-   -   a) Splitting the process air flow in two or three parts reduces        the pressure drop in the process air path—thereby further        reducing compression energy of process air compressor;    -   b) Multistage external preheating of process air coupled with        the additional heat transfer surface area utilization in the        convection section significantly raises the air preheat        temperature—thereby reducing methane slip to the secondary        reformer while reducing firing in the Primary reformer and also        resulting in higher ammonia production with further energy        savings;    -   c) Reduced air flow and heat duty in the existing convection air        coils raises the temperature of flue gas leaving it. The higher        flue gas temperature entering the next convection coil for steam        superheating—raises the temperature of the superheated steam.        Higher steam superheat temperature further reduces the steam        demand for the steam drivers of various compressors in the        ammonia plant.

The present disclosure has been described with reference to specificdetails of particular embodiments. It is not intended that such detailbe regarded as limitations upon the scope of the disclosure exceptinsofar as and to the extent that they are included in the accompanyingclaims.

1. An upgrade to an existing ammonia plant utilizing a new indirectmultistage chilling system in an existing ammonia plant air compressiontrain of the existing ammonia plant to increase process air flow to anexisting secondary ammonia reformer of the existing ammonia plantcomprising: a. a new two stage suction air chiller in the existingammonia plant air compression train that chills incoming process air byheat exchange with chilled water from an existing ammonia compressionsystem; b. additional new two stage air chillers between each of theexisting air compressors of the existing ammonia plant air compressiontrain, each new air chiller chilling incoming air by heat exchange withchilled water from the existing ammonia compression system; c. a newstaged water chiller that chills water for the existing ammonia plantair compression system by heat exchange with expanded high pressureammonia from the existing ammonia compression train.
 2. The ammoniaplant system upgrade utilizing a new indirect multistage chilling systemin the ammonia plant air compression train of the existing ammonia plantto increase process air flow to the existing secondary ammonia reformerof the ammonia plant of claim 1 further comprising: a. An added newsteam preheater for preheating an increased process air flow; b. whereinthe preheated and increased process air flow from the air compressiontrain is separated into three streams which are further heated in: i.the existing dedicated process air preheat convection coils in theexisting ammonia plant; and ii. available excess heat transfer surfaceof the existing feed preheat convection coils in the existing ammoniaplant modified to accommodate a portion of the preheated process airflow from the existing air compression train of the existing ammoniaplant; and iii. available excess heat transfer surface of existingboiler feedwater convection coils of the existing ammonia plant modifiedto accommodate a portion of the preheated process air flow from theexisting air compression train of the existing ammonia plant; and c.wherein the combined heated three streams are fed to the existingsecondary reformer of the existing ammonia plant.
 3. A method forupgrading an existing ammonia plant utilizing a new indirect multistagechilling system in an existing ammonia plant air compression train toincrease process air flow to an existing secondary ammonia reformer ofthe existing ammonia plant comprising the steps of: a. providing a newtwo stage suction air chiller in the existing ammonia plant aircompression train for chilling incoming air by heat exchange withexpanded high pressure ammonia from an existing ammonia compressionsystem of the existing ammonia plant; b. providing additional new airchillers between each stage of the existing air compressors of theexisting air compression train of the existing ammonia plant forchilling the compressed incoming air to each of the stages of anexisting air compressor by heat exchange with expanded high pressureammonia from the existing ammonia compression system of the existingammonia plant; and c. providing a new staged water chiller for chillingwater for the existing air compression system by heat exchange withexpanded high pressure ammonia from the existing ammonia compressiontrain.
 4. A method for upgrading an existing ammonia plant utilizing anew indirect multistage chilling system in an existing ammonia plant aircompression train to increase process air flow to an existing secondaryammonia reformer of the existing ammonia plant of claim 3 furthercomprising the steps of: a. providing an added new steam preheater forheating an increased process air flow; b. splitting the preheated andincreased process air flow from the air compression train into threestreams; c. wherein each of the three streams are further heated in: i.the available existing dedicated process air preheat convection coils inthe existing ammonia plant; and ii. available excess heat transfersurface of existing feed preheat convection coils in the existingammonia plant modified to accept a portion of the preheated andincreased process air flow from the air compression train of theexisting ammonia plant; and iii. modified available excess heat transfersurface of existing boiler feedwater convection coils modified to accepta portion of the preheated and increased process air flow from the aircompression train of the existing ammonia plant; and d. wherein thecombined heated three streams are fed to the secondary reformer.
 5. Animproved ammonia plant utilizing an indirect multistage chilling systemin an ammonia plant air compression train of the ammonia plant toincrease process air flow to a secondary ammonia reformer of the ammoniaplant comprising: a. a new two stage suction air chiller in the ammoniaplant air compression train that chills incoming process air by heatexchange with chilled water from the ammonia compression system of theammonia plant; b. additional two stage air chillers between each of theair compressors of the ammonia plant air compression train, each new airchiller chilling incoming air by heat exchange with chilled water fromthe ammonia compression system; c. a new staged water chiller thatchills water for the ammonia plant air compression system by heatexchange with expanded high pressure ammonia from the ammoniacompression train.
 6. The improved ammonia plant utilizing an indirectmultistage chilling system in an ammonia plant air compression train ofthe ammonia plant to increase process air flow to a secondary ammoniareformer of the ammonia plant of claim 5 further comprising: a. a newsteam preheater for preheating the increased process air flow; b.wherein the preheated and increased process air flow from the aircompression train is separated into three streams which are furtherheated in: i. the dedicated process air preheat convection coils in theammonia plant; and ii. available excess heat transfer surface of thefeed preheat convection coils in the ammonia plant modified toaccommodate a portion of the preheated process air flow from the aircompression train of the ammonia plant; and iii. available excess heattransfer surface of boiler feedwater convection coils of the ammoniaplant modified to accommodate a portion of the preheated process airflow from the air compression train of the ammonia plant; and c. whereinthe combined heated three streams are fed to the secondary reformer ofthe ammonia plant.
 7. An improved method for ammonia productionutilizing a new indirect multistage chilling system in an ammonia plantair compression train to increase process air flow to a secondaryammonia reformer of the ammonia plant comprising the steps of: a.providing a new two stage suction air chiller in the ammonia plant aircompression train for chilling incoming air by heat exchange withexpanded high pressure ammonia from an ammonia compression system of theammonia plant; b. providing additional new air chillers between eachstage of the air compressors of the air compression train of the ammoniaplant for chilling the compressed incoming air to each of the stages ofan air compressor by heat exchange with expanded high pressure ammoniafrom the ammonia compression system of the ammonia plant; and c.providing a new staged water chiller for chilling water for the aircompression system by heat exchange with expanded high pressure ammoniafrom the ammonia compression train.
 8. The improved method for ammoniaproduction utilizing a new indirect multistage chilling system in anammonia plant air compression train to increase process air flow to asecondary ammonia reformer of the ammonia plant of claim 7 furthercomprising the steps of: a. providing a new steam preheater for heatingan increased process air flow; b. splitting the preheated and increasedprocess air flow from the air compression train into three streams; c.wherein each of the three streams are further heated in: i. theavailable dedicated process air preheat convection coils in the ammoniaplant; and ii. available excess heat transfer surface of feed preheatconvection coils in the ammonia plant modified to accept a portion ofthe preheated and increased process air flow from the air compressiontrain of the ammonia plant; and iii. modified available excess heattransfer surface of boiler feedwater convection coils modified to accepta portion of the preheated and increased process air flow from the aircompression train of the ammonia plant; d. wherein the combined heatedthree streams are fed to the secondary reformer.